What images stir in your mind when you hear the word “saints”? A football team? Religious iconography? A jazz band playing, “Oh When the Saints”? This week we continue our month-long series, “Who Are You?” contemplating what it means to say that we are saints. It’s both a key statement of who we are and lofty vision for who we’re supposed to be. Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:1-9.

As we continue to explore core aspects of our identity, two aspects readily emerge: we are sinners, and we are forgiven. That incredible forgiveness of sin comes from one source, as we see in Matthew 9:1-8. Let us, too, praise the one to whom such authority to forgive was given.

In this message, we contemplate what it means to be “Image Bearers,” reading from Genesis 1:1-2:3. So much in our world is dehumanizing and attempts to strip us of our unique dignity and worth. We need to understand and affirm that all men and women are created in and continue to bear the indelible image of God.

When the Apostle Peter was describing the church he used the following images: living stones, a spiritual house, a chosen people, a royal priesthood. Today we consider this description and focus primarily on what it means for the church to be a royal priesthood.

Hebrews 11:8-16. The book of Hebrews paints a picture of life for those who are Christ-followers. We are sojourners, aliens, exiles, foreigners, strangers traveling toward home. Though we live here now, this world is not our home because God has prepared a city for us – we are constantly on our way home.